kingdom of Italy from the north, whilst Murat and the English attacked it from the south, extending their line from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean.

This,' says our historian,' was the close of the tragedy, which had begun twenty years before in our afflicted Italy. Desolated by enemies, ill treated by pretended friends, she had been deluded by promises of happiness from every side. Now the moment had come to decide whether Austria or France should preserve the empire of the peninsula, whether Austria or France should make the Italians forget, by the enjoyments of peace, the insolence and the rapacities of the late war; whether twenty years of novelties and of vicissitudes were to be the prelude of ages similar to themselves, or sink and disappear in oblivion; whether the Italians should learn the French or the German language; and, lastly, whether the flattering expressions addressed to the Italians were to turn' out for their profit, or for that of their masters.'—

This, and other passages in a similar spirit, clearly disclose our author's temper of mind, which is that of a man who has seen through the vanity and folly of party spirit, as it has too long existed in Italy, and in whom early prejudices have been subdued by the stern voice of experience, and the becalming influence of time. We must add his reflections on the departure of the French troops from that country.

The French departed in two columns, by the Mont Cenis and the Col di Tenda, and the French ensigns disappeared at last beyond the Alps, but they did not carry away every remembrance of themselves; the evil and the good they had done during so many years of occupation, were not so soon forgotten, the good being ascribed by reflecting Italians to France, the evil to a few Frenchmen; neither the amalgamation of manners, nor the connections formed between the two nations, nor the union of their interests, were obliterated; the Italians could not shut their cyes to the extension of learning, the amelioration of the judicial system, the improvement and security of their roads, nor to the magnificent edifices erected; they could not forget the new stimulus given to industry and to research, the improvements of internal commerce and agriculture. On the other side, the French left behind them many evils,ambition excited, arrogance and selfishness in every condition of society, a grasping system of taxation, a refinement in despotism unknown before, the language of the land corrupted, and a too great propensity towards military habits. The French passed away, but the traces of their residence remained. The twenty years that elapsed from the battle of Montenotte to the convention of Schiarino-Rizzino, were to Italy twenty centuries. The memory of that period will subsist as long as Italy shall continue to be inhabited.'

Thus Italy, after an eventful and murderous period of twenty years, returned, with few or no modifications, to its ancient condition. Victor Emmanuel returned to Turin, Francis to Milan, Ferdinand to Tuscany, Pius VII. to Rome; Parma passed from the Bourbons to the Austrian dynasty, Joachim alone preserved, but for a short time, the kingdom of Naples; the Italian republics were extinguished; the ingenuity of the

age discovered that legitimacy can exist only in the singular, and not in the plural, number. Little San Marino was kept, perhaps in imitation of the now fashionable policy of Napoleon; its smallness and poverty did not excite the cupidity of any one. Venice was given up to Francis, Genoa to Victor. Nor were the governments of Francis, of Victor, Ferdinand, or Pius, severe or oppressive; only they did not calculate the extent of the change which vicissitudes so great and so long-continued had operated in the hearts of men; for if even those changes were, as some pretend, but moral diseases, they required adequate remedies. Posterity will judge whether the evils which followed the restoration were owing to the patients, or to those who ought to have effected their cure. Joseph and Leopold were happy, indeed, in wishing to benefit their subjects by reforms, not to terrify them with armies. Nor, in speaking here to the Italian princes, do I mean to point out to them English, French, or Spanish institutions, which are by no means suited to Italy; but reforms which would have augmented the peace and prosperity of the Italian peninsula, institutions peculiar and agreeable to the character of the Italians. Nobility is too firmly rooted in Europe to be destroyed, therefore it ought to be reckoned upon as a necessary element in any social order which would tend to a free system, and it should be allowed its proper share of political power, distinct from the popular or democratic power, which has existed in Italy from the oldest times. . . . . The chimera of political equality has done more harm to European liberty than all the enemies of the latter put together. Abstract principles in political science are the same as geometrical principles in mechanics; the human passions in the former are what the resistance of the machinery, and the other accidents indispensable from matter, are in the latter, and which must be calculated. The object desirable is civil liberty, liberty secured by law, and an equal protection to every individual. The solution of the following problem would be of great benefit to mankind: How far and how much political equality should be given up in order to ensure personal liberty and civil equality?—

We have had occasion, in the course of our perusal of this work, to mark several inaccuracies of dates and facts, though generally of minor importance. But this author's failing is his attributing feelings and designs to the characters of his history not sufficiently demonstrated by facts or documents. He seems to have relied too incautiously on his sources of information. This is the more visible as the writer quits the ground with which he is best acquainted, i. e. the north of Italy, for the southern states of the peninsula. Thus, about the affairs of Naples and Sicily, we have a repetition of all the trite charges against the English, which have been so often met and discussed upon higher authority, and which, therefore, we abstain from noticing any farther. But our historian's ludicrous mystification in attributing, seriously, the idea of Buonaparte's expedition to Egypt to Mr. Pitt's manœuvres, we cannot pass without notice. It is an instance of the almost incredible gullibility of continental people upon any matters connected with English politics. Botta seriously affirms, that the

ministers of England, alarmed by the prospect of a French invasion, endeavoured to seduce the French directory into a determination to send Buonaparte to Africa, showing to the French oligarchs that this was the best means of getting rid of a dangerous chief, and, at the same time, of establishing a French colony in Egypt, a country so advantageously placed on the road to India. And the good natured directors were persuaded by the English agents, and succeeded in persuading. Buonaparte, and thus the expedition was prepared and sailed, and this was one of the most wonderful doings of Pitt. With just reason French and Italian critics remark, that "people are so much accustomed to look upon bribery as the principal spring of government, that we always fancy British agents every where scattering guineas over all the surface of Europe. For when any thing unusual happens on the continent: 'Behold,' it is said, 'the fruit of English gold!' These political profusions must be, at least, much exaggerated. Many are doubtless to be found willing to be bribed, but seldom do they chance to meet with a paymaster."

This unfriendly and unjust feeling towards England, which would be more accountable in a Frenchman than in an intelligent Italian, shows itself from the beginning of the work. We would tell Mr. Botta, and the other well meaning writers amongst his countrymen, that in thus quarrelling with England they act very injudiciously, that England has behaved honourably to her friends, and that she has often done good to strangers as far as her duties to herself would allow. But England, of course, is not obliged to act the part of the Knight of La Mancha, and sacrifice herself to redress the wrongs of every country, in order to reap such gratitude as foreigners seem disposed to bestow in return.

We are sorry that Mr. Botta should have indulged in these vagaries, because we really give him credit for his wish to be sincere; he ought to have recollected, however, that sincerity alone does not constitute truth. Men may be sincere in error; but this sort of sincerity is no justification for the historian, whose office is to discover and relate truth, and not trust too much to common report, and equivocal information. It is a matter of regret to us, that a writer, endowed with eloquence and acuteness, unshackled by party spirit or interest, who has spoken more openly and independently than any of his countrymen for ages past, should have been at times neglectful of that discrimination so essential to history. He has been lavish of his blame to all parties, and by his inconsiderate manner of distributing his blows, right and left, against friends or foes, he has laid himself open to the attacks of all; liberals and ultras, religionists and infidels, countrymen and foreigners. Some have accused him, and we are convinced most unjustly, of being in the interests of Austria, others of being still

* Lib. xiv.

tainted with revolutionary sentiments. The critics of Rome and Modena have charged him with sedition, and almost heresy; others with having praised too highly the energy of certain monks in defence of religion. The French have accused him of being too severe upon them, the Italians of having accepted employment under the French. But all these charges would weigh little with if the historian had always stated facts correctly, and supported them by authentic documents. That this, however, is not always the case, is but too evident.

We should treat with more indulgence his fondness for oratorical display, and the numerous speeches with which, after the manner of Livy, he bespangles his narrative even to satiety. His descriptions of great events, of the bustle of the camp, of the din of battle, of the sufferings of the devoted people, the victims of the sword or of pillage, of famine or of pestilence, have all the animation and the boldness of the best masters of historical writing; we would point out especially the description of the siege of Genoa, the passage of St. Bernard by Bonaparte, that of the Spluger by Macdonald, the catastrophe of Preveza and Nicopolis, and the destruction of the Calabrian insurgents by Manes. We could have wished for more statistical details of the internal resources of the Italian states, so varied from one another, and so little known in general. More dates would also add to the clearness of the narrative. Botta himself appears to have been fully aware of the difficulties which awaited him in the execution of his task. To speak the language of sincere and sober truth, not only to princes and ministers, but also to the people, requires an astonishing effort of fearless energy in a continental writer. The tyranny of faction, the jealousy of party spirit, are not the less active because they are obliged to wear a mask. They cannot, it is true, imprison the body, or sequestrate the property, but they attack the reputation, and ruin the peace, and mar the prospects of their antagonists.

We look upon Botta's work, notwithstanding its faults, as being one of the most remarkable productions of Italian literature in the present age, and as worthy of being classed with the writings of the great historians that have at various epochs illustrated that interesting country. The moral influence of the history we consider, on the whole, as likely to prove beneficial to a public such as the Italian, more afraid of opinion than of power, and who, long accustomed to a dictatorship in literature, have adopted a tone of timid courtesy towards the prevailing prejudices of the times, being a kind of servility which is not so much in the minds as in the manners of that indolent though highly susceptible people.

With regard to Botta's language, it appears to us generally pure, though not always free from certain vulgarisms little suited to the dignity of the subject, whilst his phraseology is at times strained into an imitation of the circumlocutions of the early Italian prose writers, and their sententious and magisterial oratory.

ART. VIII. Memoires sur les événemens qui ont précédé la Mort de Joachim I., roi des Deux Siciles; par Franceschetti, ex-General, soirtant du service de Naples; suivi de la Correspondance privée de ce Général avec la Reine, Comtesse de Lipano. 8vo. pp. 245. 68. Baudoin Freres; Paris. Treuttel and Wurtz. London. 1826.

Or the many romantic incidents which are to be found in the history of Europe, during the last thirty-five years, there are few more dramatic than those which signalized the career and death of Murat. From the commencement of his military adventures, under Napoleon, he spurned the ordinary path of life, and conducted himself more like the hero of a fiction than a soldier engaged in the real toils and perils of war. His dress, even upon occasions when men are least disposed to pay attention to such matters, was brilliant and theatrical. His hat was covered with a white_plume which was always seen shining in the thickest of the fight. The eye of Buonaparte was wont to follow it through the field; for Murat, brave as he undoubtedly was, and popular with the army, never seemed to excite the jealousy of his master. Upon his entry into Spain he appeared decked out in all the splendour of an eastern prince; and his court at Naples, if not remarkable for any solid dignity, was, at least, distinguished by the external pomp with which it was surrounded. Under all the circumstances of the case, his death, though we admit that it was consonant to law, was, perhaps, the extreme of justice; it was certainly unnecessary; but, at the same time, it was in singular unison with the whole of his active life,-it was the catastrophe of the tragedy in which he had sustained so imposing a part.

Of that catastrophe, and of the circumstances which immediately preceded and followed it, we have seen, from time to time, various accounts, no one of them corresponding with another. We believe that, even to this day, a very general impression prevails that Murat was the victim of a group of armed peasantry, who took him to a rising ground immediately after he landed on the Calabrian coast, and shot him without any ceremony. The memoires before us show this story to be incorrect, and afford several extremely interesting particulars concerning the ex-king's attempt to recover his former throne, which have not been hitherto known to the public. The author, General—or, we believe, more properly speaking-Colonel Franceschetti, is a native of Corsica, who entered into Murat's service after that island was ceded by Napoleon (1806) to his brother-in-law of Naples. He appears to have received many tokens of Murat's favour, and to have remembered them with affectionate gratitude after that unfortunate adventurer had no longer any rewards to bestow. The testimony afforded by different persons who have corresponded with him, as to the respectability of his family and the general merit of his private character, is sufficient of itself to gain him the confidence of his readers, even if the internal evidence of his narrative did not prove it to be authentic. His